An ongoing series of articles on songs & performances of the early Grateful Dead.

September 29, 2009

Dead song debuts

Here is a listing of the first performances of some of the Dead's early songs. I skipped covers for the most part, but thought a simple list of first versions would show some interesting changes in how the songs developed, if anyone wants to go through and compare.
The initial idea was to see which tunes improved from their first performance to the album versions; but there's no general answer - each song has its own history.
Some were excellent the first time out; others took a long time to settle into place; some were played for months before being recorded; others popped onto the stage fresh from studio rehearsals. Since Dead songs often took years to reach their full potential, it's rare to find a studio version that's the "standard" for a song. Early versions are usually rather bare and rough-edged, which makes them interesting to hear since our ears tend to fill in what's missing.

I may have skipped some songs inadvertently, so add a comment if any are missing. This list goes up to 1977, and is mostly limited to the Dead's original songs that appeared on albums (so a lot of their unreleased '66 songs are not included), and a few of the more notable covers up to 1967 that were released on albums.
A more complete listing of the Dead's early covers is here: http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/09/early-dead-covers.html

Early 1966 - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Beat It On Down The Line http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 (track 5)
Schoolgirl was one of Pigpen's earliest numbers, and in fact our first Schoolgirl from early '66 is also the first Dead medley, sandwiched with You Don't Love Me. (This set also features perhaps our earliest BIODTL, track 13.)

1/17/68 - Dark Star, China Cat, The Eleven, Born Cross-Eyed http://www.archive.org/details/gd1968-01-17.sbd.cotsman.11795.shnf
Dark Star had already been recorded for the single, so this is an example of a live debut that's close to the studio version, but sounds very undeveloped since they kept expanding it for years.
China Cat, on the other hand, wouldn't be recorded for another year, and these early '68 versions are not only in a different key (so Garcia sings strangely) but are paired with the Eleven.

2/18/71 - Bertha, Loser, Greatest Story, Wharf Rat, Playin' in the Bandhttp://www.archive.org/details/gd71-02-18.sbd.orf.107.sbeok.shnf
Famous show of course, with five new song debuts. Along with the August '70 shows, this show marks a change in the Dead's pattern: instead of dropping songs into the sets one-by-one when composed, now they tended to write a whole bunch of songs in a touring break and introduce them all at once. Two new songs were left for the next night...

2/9/73 - Row Jimmy, Loose Lucy, Here Comes Sunshine, They Love Each Other, Eyes of the World, China Doll, Wave That Flag (early version of U.S. Blues)http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-02-09.sbd.allred.9888.sbeok.shnf
Another one of the famed "let's debut a whole new album" shows, with seven new songs. Only three of these songs would make it onto Wake of the Flood, though, which was recorded in August '73.

From early '75, of course, we have innumerable rehearsals of the new songs in the studio, but to focus on the live debuts:
3/23/75 has the first of three Blues for Allah>Stronger Than Dirt performances.

6/3/76 - The Wheel, Might As Well, Lazy Lightning>Supplication, Dancing in the Street (disco version), Samson & Delilahhttp://www.archive.org/details/gd76-06-03.sbd.bertha-ashley.20004.sbeok.shnf
After the hiatus, a new Dead style emerged. Here the Wheel finally surfaced live, five years after being recorded! Dancing in the Streets (which had been in the sets from 1966-1970) was radically rearranged; They Love Each Other and Friend of the Devil (played 6/4/76) were also in new slowed-down renditions.

Another interesting list could be made of the first performances of the Dead's covers - for instance, to take a random few from Skull & Roses, the first versions of Not Fade Away, Goin' Down the Road, Big Railroad Blues, Me & My Uncle, and Mama Tried are rather different than what they became. I'm putting together that list as well....http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/09/early-dead-covers.html

18 comments:

I commented in my "1967 Tapes" post, the 1/14/67 Morning Dew is not from that date, but seems to be from late '68 sometime. So our first live version is actually 3/18/67. Which makes it one of the few early Dead songs in which the studio version is the earliest we have!

I take satisfaction in reading that you have figured that this Morning Dew is not from 1/14/67. I figured it it was from summer or fall '68, but I've not found a definitive date. Any ideas which date this Dew is from?

Well, it has two drummers, no organ, and I think it's in an indoor theater...otherwise, no real clues. Seems to be from an otherwise lost fall 1968 show. Have to wonder what happened to the rest of the tape of this show.... For that matter the 1/14/67 tape may be incomplete as well.

Hi, I just discovered this blog and I love it. I can add that the early version of 'Fire on the mountain' you refer to was actually called 'Happiness is drumming'. It was released in '76' on Mickeys album titled 'Diga Rhythm Band' and was an instrumental. The dead jammed on this theme a couple of times in concert. Here is a great one to check out- http://www.archive.org/details/gd1976-06-28.sbd.digitalrbb.miller.112296.flac16

True, I forgot to mention Happiness is Drumming from '76. It was also teased in the Playing in the Band on 6/22/76. Jerry even played it live with the Diga Rhythm Band on 5/30/75!Mickey did sing a studio version of Fire in the Mountain that was even earlier than Happiness is Drumming, though it hasn't been officially released. On this link it's dated '74: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPpb-dbagLU

Minor (but fantastic) addition to throw in the mix: I've recently started to accumulate the CDs released over the past 15 years or so, and I stumbled across what to my ears is the earliest hint at Help/Slip. It's on the live bonus version of Eyes on Wake of the Flood. A really nice version from Nassau Coliseum, 9/7/73. Pretty standard jam out of the vocals, but at the 10:00 mark, the jam starts to fade, then Jerry suddenly picks it up around 10:15. Then from 10:31-10:57, there it is; this startling diminished harmony jam that is the basis for much of Help-->Slip. The jam crashes back into Eyes at 10:58 and continues to smoke for quite a while...great website!

Yes, it is a hint, Garcia's playing does come close to the later Slipknot notes, though within the chord context of the usual Eyes jam. Just a hint, though, not yet the full-fledged Slipknots we'd see slipped into jams in 1974 (the first one being in the 2/22/74 Playing). The Slipknot riff is itself very close to the repeated end-of-Eyes riff they played in '73-74, both in notes and style; in this 9/7/73 version Garcia teases that riff for quite a while before they actually dive in.

Good catch. The Dead debut of the slow Friend of the Devil was 6/4/76, but the Garcia Band had been playing that arrangement in fall '75, I believe. (One of the rare crossovers from the JGB to the Dead.) There's a post about that here: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2012/04/june-30-1972-memorial-auditorium-kansas.html

Although 8/18/70 is the date associated with the debut of "Truckin", "Ripple", "Brokedown Palace" and "Operator", most likely one or more of the above songs actually debuted on the 17th. In fact, another blog discussed the 17th Fillmore show, and included "Truckin" in the electric set.

I don't know if it's necessary to mention in the 18-03-1977 the fullest performance of Terrapin Station by the group, because we know the Transit part of it was played that night the only time, so it might be called the live debut too.

I thought it would be useful to add a little list of the earliest live versions of original songs we have from 1966. (Most of them, of course, had probably been played for at least a month or two before our first tape of them, so these aren't really "debuts.")

1/8/66 - Caution1/28/66? - You Don't Have To Ask (from the last week of January - 1966 Mystery Reels, track 15) "2/6/66" - Tastebud, Mindbender, The Only Time Is Now (The first two are included in the dead.net Taper's Section, the last is only in the Vault.)3/12/66 - You See A Broken Heart5/19/66 - Standing on the Corner, Cream Puff War7/3/66 - Cardboard Cowboy, Keep Rolling By11/29/66 - Down So Long 12/1/66 - Alice D Millionaire

(We don't have any live versions of Can't Come Down or The Only Time Is Now from the 11/3/65 studio demo, but hopefully tapes of those will become public.)